Star Trek Online is now available for the Mac, four years after its Windows debut. Better late than never, I say: a Star Trek themed free to play MMO is something I'll be happy to spend some time getting to know.

I reported on it earlier today, and an eagle-eyed reader on Twitter pointed out to me that this isn't a "native" Mac game port (what that means, I'll get to in a moment) — in fact, they'd already been playing Star Trek Online for some time using a program called Wine, and they suggested this wasn't that different. This got me thinking: Does anyone really care if a Mac game is native anymore?

Star Trek Online is a free to play Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game that launched in 2010. But it launched solely for Windows gamers, leaving Mac users somewhere in the Delta Quadrant, with no way home.

Take a bunch of tech geeks who also happen to enjoy scattering their atoms across the galaxy, put them in front of mics, hit the record button, and what do you get? Another impromptu episode of the Federation's favorite podcast, that's what.

Thursday, May 16th marks the US premiere of the 12th Star Trek flick: Star Trek Into Darkness. Like the 2009 film simply titled Star Trek, the new Into Darkness is directed by JJ Abrams and follows the adventures of the crew of the [new] original Enterprise under the command of a reimagined Captain Kirk played by Chris Pine. While the action-oriented direction of the last film, cockier Kirk, aggressive lens flares, and design of the new old U.S.S. Enterprise might have ruffled a few feathers, the 2009 entry kicked up the production quality of Star Trek films by an order of magnitude or two.

Apple says its goal is to delight its users, but in reality it's probably closer to continually making the personal computer more personal, more accessible, and ultimately, more human. What then is Google's goal? To index all the world's data? Turns out, it might also be something far more human... and more Star Trek. Farhad Manjoo of Slate writes:

What you see above is the exclusive Star Trek Into Darkness teaser attached to Oz: The Great and Powerful, and posted online by avindustries13. It's the second Star Trek movie from director JJ Abrams, who has most recently been signed to direct the first of the Star Wars sequels. One look at this teaser, however, shows Abrams has already been doing just that. At the very least, he's bringing the grit dynamism of Star Wars to Star Trek. And hey, Spock does a pretty good job filling the Chewy seat.

Official movie tie-in apps are a dime-a-dozen these days, with every film studio looking to every avenue possible to promote their multi-million-dollar blockbusters. The latest is for the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, which while not due in theaters until May of this year, has launched an app that attempts to draw you deeper into the the J.J. Abrams Star Trek universe. Or at least the promotions for the film.

Star Trek: Into Darkness is the sequel to J.J. Abrams reboot and re-imagining of the classic sci-fi series, and the official teaser trailer is now available on iTunes. Thankfully, it looks a lot better than the decidedly not-Star Trek looking announcement trailer that preceded it. This one has, you know, the Enterprise and its crew, rather than just Benedict don't-call-me-Khan Cumberbatch acting all Sith-vengency.

You'll have to wait until next year to catch Star Trek: Into Darkness in theaters, and find out if everyone's favorite Sherlock really is everyone's favorite eugenically altered warlord (or, who knows, Harry Mudd?), but if you want to discuss it now, join me in our movie and TV forum Star Trek: Into Darkness thread.

In the meantime, you can also grab the first movie on iTunes now, as well as a lot of other previous generation Star Trek.